from scratch baking and cooking blog

Category Archives: Beef

Traditionally I make pork and sauerkraut today in honor of my husband’s family tradition to ring in the New Year. However; since we are a guest at a home where pork is not consumed I am preparing a beef roast instead.

I decided to throw in one of my husband’s favorite beers for good measure, hence the name drunken beef roast.
Ingredients:

1.5 pounds small gemstone potatoes, multicolor

1 pound baby carrots

3 stalks of celery, cut into 3 inch pieces

1 large yellow onion, quartered

2 cups beef stock, low sodium

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

1, 12 ounce can Yuengling light

4 whole cloves garlic

1 package of dry low sodium onion soup mix

3 pounds bottom round beef roast, seared (fat trimmed off)

Tools for the job:

Slowcooker

Large sauté pan

1-2 Tablespoons Olive oil for searing

Prework: make sure to rinse and clean all the vegatables prior to using preparing as indicated above. Also, trim the fat off the beef & sear the meat until some caramelization appears on both sides in the sauté pan.

Directions:

1. Place the first 8 ingredients in the slowcooker. Arrange evenly and diversely.

2. Sprinkle with half of the onion soup mix. Set the prepared meat on top of the mixture. Sprinkle the meat with the remaining onion mix. Cover the dish with the slowcooker lid and let the ingredients merry for 8 hours on low.

We had so many green peppers in the garden this year! I was stuffing them like crazy! At work we have stuff Pepper Soup on the menu all the time. I thought I’d give it a try in the slowcooker. I have made Stuffed Pepper Soup before with vegetarian soy crumbles and you can most definitely do that with this recipe.

This is a perfect fall dish for the crisp weather this time of year and a good way to use those heirloom green peppers from the garden.

This recipe yields: 12 serving

Prep time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound spicy sausage

1 pound extras lean ground beef (93/7)

32 ounce canned no added salt tomato sauce

1 (10 ounce can) rotel (undrained)

1 can diced tomatoes (undrained)

1 quart of low sodium spicy v8

1 quart of water

2 cups of diced green peppers

1/2 cup diced yellow onion

1 small jalapeño, diced

2 cups of uncooked brown rice

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground pepper

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoon penzeys beef base

Directions:

1. In a large nonstick pan brown the beef and sausage over medium heat. Make sure no pink meat remains. Drain the meat to remove excess fat.

2. While the meat cooks prep and pour all other ingredients into a 6 quart slowcooker. Once meat is done dump the meat into the slow cooker and stir. Set the soup on low for 8 hours. Stir occasionally.

We had some chopped vegetables and cider leftover from a party we had Sunday. I generally always have a beef roast in the freezer. I thought I’d give this a try. I literally threw this dinner together in less than 10 minutes before I went to work yesterday.
Honestly who doesn’t have time to put this together and having the stress free feeling of coming home to dinner ready.
The cider does make this dish fairly sweet. So if you don’t like your beef real sweet consider using 2 cups of beef broth and only 2 cups of cider in place of the full quart of cider.

Serves 4-6

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 8 hours on low

Ingredients:

1 (2 pounds) beef roast

1/2 large yellow onion (quartered)

1/2 medium red onion (quartered)

1 small green pepper, cut into strips

1 pack low sodium onion soup mix

1 cup of baby carrots

1 quart spiced apple cider

Directions :

1. Place the beef in the center of the slowcooked. Surround the beef with the onions,peppers and carrots.

2. Sprinkle the beef and vegetables with the onion soup mix and lastly pour the cider over the ingredients. Set the crockpot on low for 8 hours.

This time of year the homegrown peppers are bountiful. We are lucky enough to have neighbor’s with a beautiful thriving garden. They are very generous and always share their harvest. This recipe is a good way to use up some of those peppers from the garden. Bonus is this recipe freezes really well which allows you to enjoy the harvest more than one time a year.

I made this recipe for our monthly RD meeting. I try and feed the team a home cooked meal to show my appreciation. This recipe makes a lot of peppers so it is good for a meeting or potluck.

The picture below is a half buchel of Hungarian Hot Peppers we canned which are also good for stuffing.

2. Stack peppers longways in slow cooker. Pour V8 over peppers and place cooker on low heat for 8 hours.

Enjoy!

Special Tip: The banana peppers can be very tricky sometimes they are hot and sometimes they are not. So if you want to be on the safe side I would recommend using the bianca peppers which are a more sweet pepper.

We had some leftover corned beef last week from St. Patrick’s Day and the question was, how could I repurpose it? I made a super easy corn-beef recipe in my pressure cooker, which I am starting to really like for it’s quick cook times. Now, I still love my crockpot but if you are pinched for time the pressure cooker is the way to go. Since St. Patrick’s day was Thursday this year, the pressure cooker had to be used since I ran to the store after work to purchase the meat and did not have time to let it go low and slow in the crock pot.

My husband loves Rueben’s and Pizza. This is a perfect combo to use the leftovers in a fun way. We generally make a pizza once a week using prepared homemade dough. I usually make 2-4 dough recipes at one time and portion them off and freeze them to last several weeks. It is so inexpensive to make your own dough and it tastes 100% better than the stuff in a can or that’s delivered. You can also buy fresh dough at most deli’s for 1-2 $ a lb. That is if you don’t want to make the dough yourself. Or you can buy frozen dough as well, which can cost just about the same as the fresh; however, the frozen dough you can generally find a coupon in the weekly paper.

Predirections: Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Ingredients:

1 lb of prepared dough, if using frozen make sure it is thawed, I like to pull my out a day in advance

3-4 T Fat Free Thousand Island Dressing

6-7 slices Swiss Cheese, Sliced Thin

1/2-2/3 Cup Sauerkraut (drained very well)

6-8 1/4′ Slices of Leftover Corned Beef (You can always dice this up int small bits it you prefer)

2 tsp. Caraway Seeds

Directions:

Place the dough in a deep dish stoneware dish, spread the dough to the sides and form edges,

Place on top of the dough the thousand island dressing. Spread the dressing to the sides leaving an 1 inch rim of the dough. Sprinkle with caraway seeds.

Place evenly small amounts of sauerkraut on top of the dressing.

Sporadically place the sliced meat over the sauerkraut and place the dish in the oven. Reduce the temperature to 450 degrees and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove the dish from the oven and layer with cheese and return to oven for 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Place on cutting board and divide into 6 slices. Enjoy!

Share this:

Yesterday despite the snow we ventured downtown to our favorite place to shop for kitchen essentials and pantry staples. I also love to shop the Strip District for inspiration on what to make the following week. Lucky it was Saturday and one of our favorite bakeries & cafe’s was open. I was checking out the showcase and the owner had made an Italian Meat Pie. This inspired me to look for a meat pie recipe. I did not find exactly what I was looking for; however, stumbled across a recipe by One Little Project at a Time, Three Cheese Italian Rigatoni Pie that intrigued me. This will not stop me from researching to find a pastry meat pie recipe, so be on the lookout for more details in the upcoming week.

I slightly modified the original recipe with the link from of above to incorporate some lighter ingredients and add additional seasoning. This pie turns out picture perfect and ridiculously delicious (Husband approved)!

One 16 oz container of fat free cottage cheese (fat free ricotta cheese) or my family always likes a combo of both

1 large egg

1-1/2 cups of 2% mozzarella cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 tsp of Pasta Sprinkle or Italian seasoning

Instructions:

Cook the Rigatoni in a large pot of boiling water. Cook the pasta according to the package but decrease the time by Cook it about 1 minute. Drain the pasta and rinse under cold water.

Toss pasta with 1 Tablespoon of oil to prevent it from sticking. Then add the parmesan cheese, asiago cheese, and romano and mix until the cheese is evenly distributed. Set aside.

Spray a large skillet preferably nonstick with cooking spray, sprinkle meat with salt and pepper, brown the ground beef on medium heat. Remove any excess liquid once cooked and no signs of pink meat.

Add 3 cups of pasta sauce to the meat and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for at least 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and let it cool for 10 minutes.

Mix together the container of cottage cheese and the egg & pasta sprinkle.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cooking spray a 9 inch springform pan and place the remaining 1/3 cup of pasta sauce on the bottom of the springform pan. Spread the sauce evenly.

Take the cooked rigatoni and stand each piece up on its end in the pan. Continue until the whole pan is tightly packed. You will feel like you don’t have enough noodles but you will.

Pour the cottage cheese mixture over the rigatoni and spread evenly over all the noodles. Shake the pan and gently pound the pan on the counter to get some of the cottage cheese to venture down in the noodle vessels.

Pour the meat mixture over top and spread evenly over the noodles. Use your a straw to poke the meat and cheese mixture down into the noodles. You can also gently pound the pan on the counter and shake this helps as well.

Bake, uncovered, the beautiful pie for 15 minutes at 400F.

Remove from the oven and top with the mozzarella cheese.

Bake for another 15 minutes at 400F.

Let stand on wire rack for 10 minutes then run a plastic knife (this will prevent scratching of your pan) around the edge of the pan to help remove the springform pan.

Enjoy!

Share this:

One of my goals this year is to post more dinner recipes. This recipe made me happy because I did not have to stuff peppers. The original recipe is a TOH recipe. I modified the recipe to incorporate more whole grains, lower fat dairy, and lower saturated fat protein as well. I don’t honestly think anyone will miss the extra calories and fat.

Place a large skillet on the stove on medium heat and spray with canola oil or olive oil spray. Place meat, peppers, garlic, and onion in skillet make sure to cook the meat until no longer pink. Season meat with pepper, salt and Mrs. Dash.

In meantime bring the broth to boil in a small sauce pan add in the rice and decrease temperature & cook for 5 minutes.

Once the rice has cooked thoroughly add it to the meat mixture along with the marinara sauce. Mix the ingredients together well. Add about half of the cheese and stir.

4. Carefully pour the ingredients into the 2 quart casserole dish. Pat the top with a spatula to make sure the mixture is spread evenly. Top the dish with the bread crumbs and remaining cheese.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

1. Spread 1/3 cup of enchilada sauce on the bottom of a oven safe dish. Set side.
2. Brown meat in skillet on medium heat. Sprinkle meat with taco seasoning. Make sure to brown until no pink remains. Add in protein blend veggies. Cook until veggies are soft.

3. Add about 1/4 cup of protein mix into each tortilla. Roll the tortilla up and place the folded side down on into the enchilada sauce. Repeat until no tortillas or filling remains. Pour remaining enchilada sauce and cholula sauce over tortillas.

4. Sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until cheese melts.

Everyone raves about our hometown hot dog shoppe’s chili sauce. For Father’s Day we were having a cookout for the dads and wondered what goes best with hot dogs??? CHILI!

I started searching to see if there was already a “copy that” recipe for our favorite restaurant. We found a few but my mom helped us doctored up a generic recipe.

Now for all you meat lovers out there this is not a meaty sauce. The owners of the shoppe discourage the use of the name meat sauce because there is so little meat for per batch of chili.

I can remember going to the restaurant as child with my family. There are a lot of fun memories we shared while we enjoyed these hot dogs, whether it be at the booth or in the local park during the annual chalk on a walk event. Hopefully if you are trying this recipe it takes you back and may I suggest drinking a strawberry shake to help further reminisce.

Directions:
1. In a 5 qt pan brown meat on medium high until no pink meat remains. Drain excess liquid from pan to discard.

2. Add remaining ingredients except for corn starch to the same pot you cooked the meat.

3. Cook sauce uncovered on medium high heat until it boils and turn down stove to simmer for and hour.

4. Now take 1/4 cup of the liquid out of the sauce (try and avoid getting any meat) and place in a small bowl add the corn starch. Mix until corn starch liquifies. Then add the corn starch slurry back into the chili.

5. Now place the chili sauce in your favorite crock pot or slow cooker set on low and cook for 16 to 18 hours.